


It's Always Hardest on the Children

by TheLionInMyBed



Series: Raised By Wolves [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Bad Parenting, Decapitation, Divorce, Domestic Violence, Gen, Poor Life Choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 14:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7056652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gilavar's parents have been at war for as long as he can remember. They've just never been quite so literal about it before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Always Hardest on the Children

“Wake up, Gilavar.” The voice was strained and urgent. “ _Wake up!_ ”

He felt a sharp pain in his arm and blinked awake to find a dark, misshapen figure looming over his bed. His eyes adjusted and it resolved into his father with Tehaneth clutched to his side and a cloth-wrapped bundle in his arms.

His father’s face was pale and drawn but he was smiling - too wide, his father never smiled like that - and his eyes were feverishly bright.

Gilavar was well familiar with his father’s moods, had had little choice but to become so. There were the black ones that kept him in his bed for days on end, leaving Gilavar to manage the household and care for his siblings as best he could in his absence. Worse were the anxious, irritable times when no one could do anything right and he snapped at servants and scolded his children for playing too loudly, for talking too quietly, for existing too close to him. Rarest were the good days when he’d brush their hair and tell them stories of Calima, the founder of his House - _their_ House, he would insist - and of the Lady of Spiders outwitting all the other gods, and of his own life before he was their mother’s.

This strange exhilaration was new and it frightened him.

Gilavar struggled to sit up, shaking off sleep and pushing back blankets - too slow, for their father pinched him again. He thrust the bundle at Gilavar and then strode to the other side of the room and began poking at the mantelpiece. The wrappings turned out to contain Marin, fast asleep. His little sister was heavy for a six month old and he had to use both hands to support her as he slipped out of bed to stand, shivering, upon the marble tiles.

The compound was quiet around them - he was used to the sound of guards pacing the corridor outside the apartments he shared with his father and siblings, the clatter of servants and slaves working through the night to prepare for the next day.

“What’s happening, Father?” There was no sign of Sarall, the great black raven that was his father’s familiar and his constant companion, and that more than anything else told him that something was wrong.

Mathis Il’harren ignored him and it was Gilavar’s brother who answered. Even at six Tehaneth was adept at keeping his emotions off his face but his voice still shook slightly as he spoke. “People are coming. There’s going to be a fight. We have to be quiet.”

There was a practice sword propped against the dresser, where he’d left it after the day’s practice. Without an edge it would do him little good against a real opponent but he’d feel better holding it. “Who? Why?” With some awkward juggling, he managed to get the sword unsheathed and a hand free to hold it, without dropping or disturbing Marin.

“Shhhhhh. _Quiet_ ,” Tehaneth said, doing a credible impression of their father’s sternest voice. “We’re ecscaping.”

“Escaping,” Gilavar corrected automatically. Marin was a finicky child and her lack of reaction to the awkward way he was holding her worried him. He gave her an experimental shake.

Tehaneth glared, annoyed despite his fear. “ _Escaping_. And don’t wake her up, Father put her to sleep on purpose. She’s not old enough.”

“What are we escaping from? Where’s Mother? Is she back from the hunt? Did she tell you we had to leave?”

Tehaneth looked to their father for an answer but none was forthcoming; he was too busy running his fingers over a delicate, if tacky, engraving of a troop of mushrooms on the overmantle. There was a click and something shifting at the back of the fireplace, behind the hearth. Gilavar hadn’t known there was a passageway there but it did not surprise him. The Košava manse was ancient and cavernous, riddled with secrets. Secrets no one ever thought it worth divulging to him.

Their father grabbed Tehaneth by the wrist and pulled him into the tunnel, soft clouds of ash puffing up about their feet. Gilavar followed, Marin cradled in the crook of his elbow. “What’s happening? Why won’t you tell us-”

Sparks crackled from their father’s fingers and his hair snapped with static as he rounded on him. “ _Be quiet_. If you want to survive the night then for once in your Godsdamned life you’ll shut your mouth and do as you’re told.” It was sound and fury; their father knew nothing of battle magic, lacked the training to inflict more than minor burns, but looking at him then, Gilavar couldn’t help but fear him.

“You’re hurting me,” Tehaneth said quietly, more comment than complaint, and Gilavar could see his brother’s fingers had gone pale and bloodless with the strength of the grip on his wrist. Without acknowledging him, their father turned and stalked on down the stairs, Tehaneth stumbling in his wake.

 _It’s finally happened. He’s going to kill his children, then himself, like something in a song._ He’d hoped that putting the fear into words would make it sound ludicrous, make it easier to dismiss. It didn’t.

He contemplated fleeing out into the corridor, calling for the guards, screaming for Mother. And leaving Tehaneth alone with him.

He couldn’t do that.

Gilavar gripped his sword tighter and followed their father deeper into the passage. It seemed like the only thing to do.

  
***

They crouched in the darkness, quiet as the mice that scuttled around and over them, for what felt like hours, until Gilavar felt half mad with the mix of fear and boredom. There were sounds from outside, occasionally, but they were muted and far away, unidentifiable. Gilavar imagined a battle - the scream of steel on steel, cries of pain and the boom and crackle of spells - but that was an illusion spun of a child’s fears and fancies. Their lives were falling apart around them, people might be dying and it was all so incredibly _dull_.

Marin still hadn’t stirred but he was afraid to ask what drug or spell had been used to silence her.

Tehaneth curled up in their father’s lap, sat still and let him stroke his fingers through his hair like he was petting a cat. The boy’s braids were come half undone and their father untangled them and began new ones in one of the elaborate styles that Gilavar had never had the patience to sit still for but that his brother never seemed to mind.

The only light came from their father’s ring - the one that bore his house’s sigil, that Gilavar had never seen him without. It was a weak flicker that hadn’t been visible in the larger room but cast a sickly glow over everything in the crawlspace, casting twisted, dancing shadows as his hand moved. Gilavar had never seen it shine like that before, would have preferred darkness to that wan light, but their father’s eyes kept stealing to it, hungrily, as though he could scry some answer from it. Maybe he could - magic had never come easily to Gilavar the way it had to his brother and he’d made a point of avoiding their father’s attempts to school him in it.

The light dimmed and, seeming calm for the first time that evening, their father spoke. His voice was soft but it still made Gilavar jump and then curse himself for it. “I know you’ll hate me for this,” he murmured. “But I had your best interests at heart.”

Their father never did anything for them - he was as cold and self-serving as a snake - but it would do no good to say as much. “You haven’t even told us what you’ve done.”

“For your own protection. If we fail, any spells she casts will attest that you were innocent. Your ignorance might save your life.” He tied off another braid and glanced down at the child in his lap. Tehaneth’s eyes were closed but Gilavar could tell he was listening from the alert angle of his ears.

“You betrayed us.” He was surprised at the lack of rancour in his own voice.

“Not ‘us’,” said their father. “This was all inevitable - Košava made sure of that. I’m just saving what I can from the fire.”

Their father glanced down at the ring again and nodded to himself. The light had gone completely out leaving cold, dead stone. “It’s time to go.”

***

_“I’m of a mind to go hunting tomorrow,” their mother had announced at dinner the day before. The family meal was a weekly ritual that never got any less excruciating. Their father would sit rigid as a corpse and glare at his place setting as though it had personally offended him, while their mother slouched in her chair and had them recite their lessons. Sometimes, if she hadn’t had too much to drink, she even feigned interest. She was a large, bluff woman, quick to laugh, quick to anger, quick to forgive. Their father, with his humourless smiles, who nurtured grudges with more care than he did his children, was as poor a match for her as could be conceived. He had been given to her to bind their houses together upon her ascension to Margravine but even for a political marriage, their relationship was cold. Their father forever goading and undermining, his mother lashing out in response. Gilavar was sure she had only turned to drink in an effort to drown him out._

_“Hunting tomorrow?” Their father didn’t look up from his intense scrutiny of the cutlery._

_“Is there an echo? Yes, hunting. There are rumours of a fair sized young drake out in the Wyrmruns. Its head would look very fine amongst the others.” She gestured with her knife to the trophies that lined the dining room walls; a manticore’s tail and the pearlescent horn of a unicorn, the stuffed and mounted heads of harpies and ogres and elves. Tehaneth had named them all, though the names changed from day to day, and loved to tell long, convoluted stories about their lives and how their mother had met and killed them. A tutor must have shown him some book on anatomy, because the deaths were getting increasingly detailed, with an uncomfortable focus on slicing jugulars._

_“You’re going to waste a day over rumours?” Their father continued to address his plate, his voice the patronizing singsong he reserved for explaining to Gilavar why he wasn’t good enough. “Have you forgotten you’re supposed to be meeting Marshal Dzud? Do you want her to call in the loan?”_

_“I can reschedule. If she wants her payment, Dzud will wait on my pleasure. The drake will not,” she said firmly. Their father’s attempts to forbid their mother something only ever made her more mulishly determined to have it. Gilavar couldn’t believe that he hadn’t learnt that by now._

_“It’s not wise to antagonize her.”_

_“It’s not wise to antagonize me but have you ever let that stop you?” She pushed her chair back and strolled around the table to stand behind their father’s seat. Sarall was displaced from her perch on the headrest and flapped resentfully away to land on a stuffed goblin._

_Their mother traced her fingers along the line of their father’s cheekbone, brushing back a few strands of his hair that had come loose, and then dropped her hands to rest lightly on his shoulders. Someone who wasn’t watching for it wouldn’t have seen the sudden extra tension in his posture. “I’m going hunting, that’s not up for debate,” she continued. “I might even take the boy with me. What do you say, Gil?”_

_Tehaneth dropped his fork with a clatter and ducked out of sight, ostensibly retrieving it. His little brother hated conflict. Sarall gave the goblin’s eye an optimistic peck, the clacking of her beak against the glass horribly loud._

_“Yes ma’am.” He tried for enthusiasm and hoped it didn’t come out desperate; trips with his mother were few and far between but when she did decide to take him with her, to pit fights and gambling dens, or off on the trails of savage beasts, it never failed to be dangerous and wildly exhilarating. Gilavar had never been to the Wyrmruns, the maze of lava tubes that riddled the rock to the east of the city, but he knew that free goblins laired there and salamanders attracted by the heat that still lingered in the stone. Their father would never countenance his going._

_Their father gave Gilavar a long, inscrutable look and then smiled blandly. The expression was careful and, Gilavar though, very calculated but it made him look suddenly younger, like they could have been brothers and not parent and child. “Do as you will,” he said, reaching up to cover her hand with his._

_Gilavar stared, as did their mother. “You don’t mind?” she said, momentarily unbalanced._

_“Of course I mind but let us not pretend I have a say in it. I can’t govern my own life, nevermind my son’s. Let us skip to the part where you disregard my wishes and take him anyway. I’m sick of fighting.”_

_Gilavar remembered the last time their mother had tried to take him somewhere their father hadn’t approved of, could probably recite his rant from memory. “What do you expect him to do on a hunting trip?” he had snapped. “He’s a fifteen year old boy and he needs to learn to act like it. You can’t keep treating him like a daughter. You can’t replace them,” he had said and other, crueller things, digging up bodies that should have been buried before Gilavar was even born. Their father hadn’t left his chambers for a week afterwards and their mother’s knuckles had been left raw and bloody._

_Perhaps he_ had _learnt._

_Clearly his mother did not appreciate the change in tactics, for she frowned and tightened her grip on their father’s shoulders - he could tell from the whitening of her knuckles. Their father’s expression didn’t change._

_“Whatever game you’re playing darling, think on how it will end for you,” she said softly, leaning down to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Gilavar looked away, embarrassed, wishing he could duck under the table too. The parodies of affection were almost worse than the violence._

_She strolled to the sideboard and selected a decanter. “A hunt always gets my blood up,” she said, holding the emerald spirit up to the light. “See that you’re presentable upon my return. You haven’t been making an effort of late. It shows.”_

_“As you say, my lady.” Their father waited until she’d left the room before letting the smile drop. “Not a word, Gilavar. Tehaneth, get up off the floor and eat your vegetables. I know that’s an illusion and you’re not leaving the table until your plate is actually clear.”_

_***_

_When she set off early the next morning, their mother left Gilavar behind. He’d stood in the courtyard, watching them ride out, bitter enough that it almost choked him._

_The sound of wings drew his attention up, to one of the overlooking balconies, where their father waited. Sarall had taken flight and circled high above them before winging her way over the compound wall. At this distance he couldn’t make out their father’s expression but Gilavar could imagine it well enough and he turned away in disgust and stalked back inside._

  
***

There were soldiers waiting for them on the other side of the secret door, crossbows leveled. Gilavar gripped his sword so tightly his hand ached and stepped forwards, pushing Tehaneth behind him, but the women, after a moment’s hesitation, lowered their weapons. They wore the blade-and-shackles sigil of their father’s house but some of them he thought he had seen before, in the uniforms of his mother’s guard. Their commander, and her he did not know, stepped forwards. She was a short woman, almost plump, dressed in flame-bright silks that made her seem to glow in comparison to her soldiers’ drab leathers. On her shoulder sat Sarall, beak held close to her ear.

“I hope you packed, Mathis,” she said with a smile that was warm and sly.

 _Father’s family, come to our aid against- against-_ It made no sense. He’d seen nothing of House Il’harren but the odd missive on his mother’s desk, always curt demands for meetings, for payment of interest, for the return of their property. His mother had always dismissed them, laughed when they arrived at breakfast and shown them to their father before tossing them onto the heap. It was a large pile indeed - it was not only Il’harren that demanded his mother’s attention.

“Ami,” said their father. He smiled, without the manic edge from before.

“I’m glad to see you safe. And your children. Oh Brother, you’re so thin.” She embraced him and he slumped into her arms, some of the tension bleeding out of him. Sarall hopped from her shoulder and flapped heavily across to Gilavar. She cronked a greeting - though she could talk, she rarely chose to - and pecked his ear. Gilavar stroked her feathers, trying to draw comfort from the familiar softness, and fought the fear from his face.

Tehauno bowed formally with a six year old’s solemn dignity and the woman - their aunt - smiled wider and ruffled his hair. “So polite. Clearly this little one doesn’t take after you.” She glanced from Tehaneth to Gilavar. “Though I can see you in the scowley one easily enough. Shall we be off? Mother is waiting.” She did ask to see Marin as everyone always did - Marin was their mother’s long awaited heir after all, with the future of their house held in her chubby little hands. Gilavar used a corner of the blanket to dab surreptitiously at her snotty nose, just in case they were waiting to present her later.

The squad of soldiers closed in around them and one of the women hoisted Tehaneth up onto her shoulders as they set off. “Can’t have you slowing us down, little prince,” she said. An excuse, Gilavar did not doubt - people were always looking for reasons to carry Tehaneth Košava, to pinch his cheeks, to card fingers through his hair, as though he were a pet and not a child. If he disliked it Tehaneth kept that to himself and bore it all as placidly as a doll.

“I thought Mother would send Zathri,” their father said, falling in beside Amihan.

“We considered it but we wanted to retrieve you and your sons alive and she still struggles with little things like collateral damage.”

“It’s been so long, I’d heard the rumours but...”

“Some are exaggerated, some are...not. We thought it safer to send her hunting with Khamsin; she has the best luck controlling her.”

“Have you had word from them?”

“Oh yes, they’re on their way back now. They’ll meet us in the courtyard. Khamsin says she has a gift for you.”

“My sisters are too kind.”

Gilavar had heard their father speak of Khamsin, the eldest of his sisters, and there had been letters from Amihan as long as he could remember but Zathri had never been mentioned before.

Amihan kept up a steady stream of chatter as they walked, so utterly relaxed that Gilavar had almost forgotten the strangeness of it all, until they reached the entrance hall.

The floor was littered with bodies. He had been half expecting it - he was not _stupid_ , no matter what his father said - but he still balked when he caught sight of them, and would have stopped entirely had not a soldier caught him by the shoulder and marched him on. He was careful not to look at their faces lest he recognize a cousin, a soldier who’d let him play with her sword, a servant who had flirted with him. He clutched Marin to his chest, adjusting the blankets that wrapped her so that even if she woke she would not see.

They found Margravine Sharev Il’harren in the middle of the hall, seated upon the lip of a fountain, adjutants scuttling around her like ants attending a queen. He’d never seen his grandmother before and he’d been expecting an older Amihan. Sharev Il’harren was small like her daughter but the resemblance ended there. She was dressed in plain dark silks with a gaunt face that was a study in antipathy. Her eyes were a red so pale they were almost pink and they were as cold and dispassionate as a snake’s. Sarall flew from his shoulder to perch beside her, feathers gleaming the same rippling blue-black as the water in the fountain. The Margravine stroked her absently with one delicate hand.

Amihan stopped their party a respectful distance away and saluted, her soldiers following suit. Their father bowed deeply, dropping to his knees on the stone, his robes pooling around him. Tehaneth mimicked him, leaving Gilavar standing alone in her presence. Their father shot him a sidelong glance, fear and frustration twisting his features, but Gilavar ignored him and Sharev Il’harren ignored them both.

“Amihan. Report,” she said in a voice as dry as the scrape of scales on stone.

“Everything went as planned, Mother. We’re wiping out the last resistance now. We retrieved Mathis and your grandchi-”

“I have eyes, Amihan. Please refrain from stating the obvious. What of our gold?”

“We had no problems with the vaults but we found them all but empty. With the plunder and slaves we’ve taken we’ll recoup some of what they owed us but I doubt we’ll profit from tonight’s work.”

“Mmph. As we suspected. Still, Qarajel has answered for her attempt to defraud us and others will hesitate before doing the same. Our purpose here is served.” She was interrupted by the shrill blast of a horn and the ringing of booted feet on stone. “Ah, Khamsin. Well timed.”

The approaching woman was tall, clad in black armour and grim purpose, with their father’s - his own - sharp nose and deep-set eyes. A dozen soldiers marched behind her, wearing hunting leathers. One had a silver-chased horn hanging from her belt that could have been a twin to his mother’s. Another dragged a sack behind her, leaving a slick, wet trail. The black stone that tiled the courtyard masked the colour but he could guess it easily enough.

“Good hunting, sister?” Amihan called brightly.

“Good enough,” she said flatly. “I sent Zathri home with half my women. The killing left her agitated.”

“And Košava?” Their father’s voice was brittle with hope and Gilavar knew, he already knew what she was going to say.

“Your wife is dead, slain by my hand.” She paused here and the woman dragging the sack stepped forwards and upended it with a flourish. “For you, Brother. Perhaps you want it stuffed?”

_Mother had given him the practice sword he held now, laughed to see him with it and corrected his grip. Their father hadn’t approved - when had he ever? - and thinned his lips, saying something about unseemliness. Mother had ignored him._

_“Strike here,” she’d said. “Where the neck meets the body. The spine is there, the arteries, the windpipe - even a skinny boy like you can kill a woman if you get your sword in the right place.”_

The head hit the pavingstones with a dull thud and rolled a little, coming to rest face down at his grandmother’s feet.

They spoke further but Gilavar couldn’t make out the words anymore. His vision blurred and his focus narrowed to the paving stones directly beneath his feet. They were black granite, chipped and speckled with mould, with a tracery of white veins, delicate as hyphae. The veins seemed to writhe and pulse before his eyes, in time with the squirming nausea in his gut. He wanted to vomit but couldn’t, not there on the worms crawling through the stone. They were slithering up over his boots, rooting him there to the courtyard and the corpse.

Something caught him by the sleeve but it took long moments before he registered the touch and longer still to come back to himself and look round. Tehaneth was looking up at him, dry-eyed, teeth sunk into his lower lip - childish, their father had said, and Tehaneth had dropped the habit, hadn’t done it in years - and Gilavar wrapped his arm around his brother’s shoulders and pulled him close. It was awkward for he was still holding the sword and sister both, but it was grounding and it helped him fight down the nausea. He had to be brave.

“-but those still loyal have rallied and driven us back. They’re barricaded in there now,” Amihan was saying.

Sharev Il’harren allowed herself a smile. From the set of her face, Gilavar doubted she indulged often. “You’ve both done well,” she said.

Their father had waited, quiet, while they spoke of war and tactics. Now he broke in. “Tell me of her death,” he said. “Did she fight? Or did you butcher her like the pig she was?” The feverish gleam was back in his eyes.

Khamsin sniffed disdainfully. “I expect no accolades; she was a drunkard and a fool but for all that she was a warrior and died as befits one. What of the holdouts, Mother?”

“Kill them all. Leave no survivors,” their father insisted.

“With nowhere to retreat and no hope of relief, they’ll fight to the last woman.” Amihan shrugged apologetically.

“I concur,” said Khamsin. “I can bring you a victory but it will be a costly one, with little gain to us.” She did not address their father or even look at him but talked only to Margravine Sharev.

“Are you so craven?” said their father. “They _defy_ us. Perhaps I should wear the armour, sister. Hand me your sword.”

“And perhaps not,” Khamsin said dryly. “Your emotions have gotten the better of you. See to your sons.”

“It is unbecoming for you to squabble like children,” the Margravine said, speaking over them. “Khamsin, oversee our withdrawal. We have what we came for and there’s no point in further violence. Amihan, conduct a final sweep, check she had no valuables squirreled away that Mathis was unaware of.”

“Very good, ma’am.” Khamsin saluted again and turned on her heel, her soldiers falling in behind her. Amihan followed, pausing to wink - at him or their father, he couldn’t tell which. “Be strong,” she mouthed.

“As for you.” The Margravine turned to their father and her voice was almost gentle. “My poor, brave son. I should never have let that drunken louse have you. I should have acted sooner, would have, had she not tied my hands.”

Their father didn’t speak and Gilavar was afraid to look at his face. He watched his grandmother instead and her smile did not flicker though it didn’t reach her eyes. “Though it does us no good to dwell on paths not taken,” she continued finally, before the weight of silence grew too heavy. “You are safe now and that is what matters. Widowerhood will suit you. Now, introduce me to my grandchildren.”

Their father hustled them all forwards. Tehaneth balked at the head and their father kicked it aside without looking down.

She reached out and took Gilavar’s chin in her hand, looking him over as dispassionate as a woman eyeing over a horse at the market. She turned his head this way and that and he half expected her to force his mouth open to check his teeth. _If she tries, I’ll bite her,_ he thought, _and damn the consequences_. Tehaneth received the same treatment and bore it with his usual docility. She did not look at Marin any more than his aunt had.

“Something will have to be done about the elder one’s face,” she concluded. “The younger is presentable.” Gilavar felt himself blush, as he always did, which would only bring the ugly blotch of the birthmark on his cheek into starker relief. _Is now the time for vanity?_ he asked himself. _Your mother is dead._ The words made no sense.

Their father bowed his head. “I told Košava as much but she never cared for my opinion. She let them both run wild.”

“Such willfulness is easily curbed. Do you children understand?” She addressed them for the first time. “House Košava dies this night. You will be given our name and come under our protection. When you’re old enough, suitable matches will be found for you. You will not dishonour us.” It was half command, half prophecy. “And now one final matter, before we bring this ugly business to a close. You do understand?”

Their father froze, like an actor who’d forgot his lines and awaited a prompt. The Margravine continued: “You know how dangerous it is to leave an heir. She could become a rallying point for-” Sarall’s scream cut her off. The bird snapped at her fingers then shoved away from the fountain and flapped back to her master.

“Do you think, after everything, I don’t know what has to happen?” their father hissed and Gilavar wondered how he dared to sound so wounded. “Just put an end to it. Please.” He looked away, face hidden by the black shroud of his raven’s wings.

Sharev Il’harren looked almost chagrined. “You’ve always been a good and dutiful son. Know that I am proud of you.” She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed them briefly, nodding to one of her soldiers. Gilavar felt a cold, awful squirming in his stomach, like he’d swallowed eels. Worse than the nausea at the sight of the head. He didn’t move.

Later, he would imagine how things should have gone. The words he spoke - strong and defiant - that shattered her composure, made them feel the full weight of what they had destroyed, what they were about to do.

He would picture the fight. While still a boy, he had imagined himself victorious. The last true child of House Košava, striking down those that dared raise a hand against his family. As he grew older and more realistic, his fantasies all ended in his own death, cut down by half a hundred blows. It was bloody and ugly and inglorious - he’d seen enough death by then to hold no illusions, to know there was nothing noble in blood and rot and shit - but it was his, something they couldn’t take away.

He should have died before he let them take his name. He should have done _something_.

He didn’t resist when they pulled Marin from his arms. He didn’t speak, he didn’t even look away. Tehaneth hid his face in the folds of his cloak and he made no move to comfort him.

He watched the knife fall.

She didn’t cry out.

_“She didn’t feel it”, Tehaneth told him later. “Father said. He didn’t want her to suffer.” Gilavar hit him for that, for the first time._

“Time to go home,” said Sharev Il’harren.


End file.
